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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123442">Sunsoft and the Dark Knight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Will_Keaton/pseuds/Will_Keaton'>Will_Keaton</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:21:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123442</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Will_Keaton/pseuds/Will_Keaton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Analyzing the origin of Sunsoft's <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i> for the NES.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sunsoft and the Dark Knight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>	When I was a kid, I owned an NES, and one of the games I had was <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i>. I love that game, but looking back on it I’m pretty sure it wasn’t originally a <i>Batman</i> game.</p><p>	Let’s start with Sunsoft. This company made several awesome video games back in the day, including the first <i>Batman</i> NES game that was based on the 1989 movie, <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i>, and a game called <i>Journey to Silius</i>. That last game is important. Why? Well, Sunsoft once held the rights to make a <i>Terminator</i> game. Thing is, before their <i>Terminator</i> game could be finished, they lost the license. With a game mostly done they simply changed a few sprites and that became <i>Journey to Silius</i>. Now, for a time, Sunsoft had the <i>Batman</i> license. Obviously. They made that first <i>Batman</i> game and it sold well. Now, I believe that Sunsoft had hoped to make a second <i>Batman</i> game, but the license to do so was going to expire before they could make a whole new game. So they took an unrelated game, changed the main character’s sprites, made a few other minor changes, and released it as <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i>. So, whereas <i>Journey to Silius</i> was a <i>Terminator</i> game turned into an unrelated game, <i>Return of the Joker</i> was an unrelated game turned into a <i>Batman</i> game. Why do I think this? Let’s break it down.</p><p>        The <i>Batman</i> game based on the movie was a side scrolling action game, and so is <i>Return of the Joker</i>, but they go about this very differently. In the movie game the character sprites are quite small, and Batman has to a do a lot of wall jumping. Like, a lot. The screen scrolled both left to right and up and down, and it allowed fro diagonal scrolling. The character sprites in <i>Return of the Joker</i> are big and take up a lot of the screen. There isn’t any wall jumping, and the game usually scrolls left to right, though there are a couple of times when you’ll enter a room which scroll up. I’d imagine that if Return of the Joker was going to be a sequel to the first <i>Batman</i> game from inception then the gameplay of the two titles would have more in common.</p><p>	In the earlier Batman game based on the movie, Batman had punches and batarangs that look and act like batarangs, or at least boomerangs. He also had a rocket launcher, which isn’t typically a Batman thing, but it’s not not a Batman thing. In Return of the Joker you still control Batman, and he looks like Batman, but he holds out his arm and fires energy projectiles like Mega Man. There’s the default pea-shooter, and then four upgraded energy projectiles that correspond to a letter. C stands for cross bow, which is still an energy projectile. N stands for neutralizer, which is another energy projectile. S stands for star, which shoots our star shaped energy projectiles. B stands for batarang, but they still look more like energy projectiles than actual batarangs.</p><p>	The levels in the Batman movie game were places like the streets of Gotham, and Axis Chemicals, and a bell tower, which are from the movie. There are also factory stages which don’t seem to be from anything. Now, <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i> has a lot of levels in rooftops, factories, sewers, a snow field, and an underground mine. One level is just a tank. Specifically, the level auto-scrolls while there is a tank in background with a guy on top of the tank throwing explosives at you. The final level is a jungle island that turns into a factory. Some of this stuff isn’t really that out of place for Batman, but some of it is kind of weird.</p><p>	Enemies from the first Batman game were generic thugs, or robots. In Return of the Joker, none of the enemies look like typical thugs. They’re mostly robots or cyborgs or mercenaries of some kind. They feel more like they’re from sci-fi game than a Batman game. And there’s a snow level where you fight robed characters who throw tornados at you. That’s out of place for Batman, but it also doesn’t jive with the enemies in the rest of the game. I’m not sure what the deal is with the guys in that snow level.</p><p>	In the game based on the movie, two bosses were Firefly, and the Electrocutioner, two actual Batman villain from the comics. Now, two other bosses were big machines, but the final boss was Joker. In Return of the Joker, you fight a big guy with green jumpsuit and a gun, a mining robot, and another big machine. There are two boss fights with the Joker, but in each instance he’s just piloting a machine and he doesn’t physically do anything. I think in the original game he the final boss was a mad scientist, not unlike Mega Man’s Doctor Wily.</p><p>	So, we have Batman as the player character, and you fight Joker twice. What else is “Batman” in this game? The opening shows three static screens that depict the plot, and between stages there are static images of Batman or the Batmobile or Batwing, and the end credits show the Batwing flying by. The end credits play as you see the Batwing flying across the screen. And that’s really it as far as Batman content in the game is concerned. There are two stages that are side scrolling shoot ‘em ups, with Batman flying through them with a jetpack and holding out a gun to shoot in front of him. When you acquire eight “energy capsules” you temporarily turn into a golden Batman who has a big mechanical backpack and an arm cannon that fires infinitely as long as you are in this form. Neither of these mechanics really scream Batman to me, though I’m pretty sure I have an action figure that is exactly Batman’s golden form.</p><p>	All in all, there are only a couple things about <i>Return of the Joker</i> that really identify it as a <i>Batman</i> game, and those things could have easily been changed late in production. That’s why I think Sunsoft had another game and just changed the player character’s sprites to be Batman, changed the final boss to be Joker, added an intro and some end of level end screens showing Batman stuff, changed the end credits to have the Batwing, and then called it a day. Can I prove that that’s what happened happened? No. But I still believe this is the untold story of <i>Batman: Return of the Joker</i>.</p>
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